The Russo brothers’ upcoming Netflix movie The Electric State includes a section that takes place before the graphic novel due to its "vague narrative"

As the Russo brothers’ upcoming movie The Electric State is adapted from a graphic novel by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag, the filmmakers had to read between the lines (or rather, pictures) to bring what was on the page to life. But for viewers’ benefit, the team ultimately chose to feature a section which takes place before the events of the novel.

"How do you make a big, giant fantasy film that honours the level of detail and inventiveness and vastness that Simon suggests in his art, and in his sort of vague narrative?" says Anthony Russo in the new issue of SFX magazine, which features the 30 greatest shows of the SFX era on the cover and hits newsstands on February 26. The answer? To create a backstory explaining how the main characters ended up where we see them at the start of the novel.

Both directors Anthony and Joe Russo, and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, fell in love with Stålenhag’s story of a teenage girl and her robot friend on a journey across the ravaged ‘90s US in search of her long-lost brother. However, to provide viewers with a little more context, the filmmakers decided to create a prologue that sets up how the US became a dystopia due to war and technology.

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"There's a before and an after for both narrative purposes and world-building purposes," says McFeely who co-wrote the script. "So what was the before and the after? For us and for Simon, to some degree, it's a different kind of war. It's called the AI War. And our AI is represented by various robots that are implied and sometimes taken straight out of his work."

So, instead of the movie starting with protagonist Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) setting off on an adventure, we meet Michelle and her younger brother Chris (Woody Norman) before the war. Then post war, Michelle is a troubled orphan living in foster care in an America where all tech is controlled by an Elon Musk-meets-Bill Gates style tech leader Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci) who has sent robots to the edge of the country behind a wall.

For what happens next, you’ll just have to tune into Netflix on March 14th. The Electric State also stars Chris Pratt, Ke Huy Quan, Jason Alexander, Giancarlo Esposito, Anthony Mackie, Woody Harrelson, and Brian Cox.

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The Electric State releases on Netflix on March 14. Read more in the latest issue of SFX magazine, which will be available from Wednesday, February 26. Check out the special SFX anniversary cover to look for on newsstands below...